Ready for Integrated Communication 4.0?

A German company unexpectedly finds itself in a reputation dilemma, while at the same time a promising contact from abroad is ignored. Why? Because communication is still stuck in the silo mentality of the 1990s. In our new blog post, we show how integrated communication 4.0 works in real time – and why it can be decisive for sales, image, and jobs today. Read how newsroom structures, networked processes, and modern working time models make the difference – and how you can future-proof your organization.

A million-dollar order and a shitstorm at the same time

In Azerbaijan, a man searches the internet for a large batch of a high-quality industrial product. He finds what he is looking for on the website of a medium-sized company in Germany. He gets in touch. Via Twitter. In Turkish. At the same time, an animal rights activist in the US links the high-quality industrial product from Germany to the killing of endangered species. A major threat to the reputation of the renowned company is brewing on social media.

Fatal: The medium-sized company is unaware of either the promising large order or the growing shitstorm. Because it’s the weekend. The press office, marketing, sales, customer service, and other departments are closed. And even if they were open, their structure and equipment would no longer meet the requirements of integrated communication 4.0.

Why integrated communication often fails

At the same time, it is becoming increasingly important for modern corporate communications to be able to respond to external inquiries on a wide variety of topics at any time. It must also be able to manage the potential impact of live events on its own brand in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week (24/7). But even companies with several thousand employees and billions in revenue are far from meeting these demands. This is because their organizational structure and processes are often still characterized by the old way of thinking in clearly separated departments (silo thinking) and by acting in clearly separated responsibilities and channels (silo structures).

Today, however, effective communication is no longer vertical and channel-driven, but topic-driven, multimedia, cross-media, or even transmedia interactive.
This is the only way to win the competition for attention and brand loyalty. This was recently confirmed by the communications expert of a high-tech company with around 25,000 employees: “We can invest much more in our brands if we prepare our topics and content centrally and systematically for all relevant channels.”

In its dialogue with its stakeholders, a company should therefore ensure that it conveys authentic, credible core messages that are consistent with the brand essence across all departments and channels. This applies regardless of whether it is

• the purchasing department communicating with suppliers,
• the sales or customer service department communicating with customers,
• the press office communicating with the media, or
• the human resources department communicating with applicants.

Corporate newsroom for integrated communication

In many cases, one solution for truly integrated communication 4.0 is to set up a communication center in the form of a corporate newsroom, familiar from media companies, which is staffed 24/7. However, there is no off-the-shelf system. Every company has different needs, constraints, cultures, structures, and goals. Corporate newsrooms must therefore be developed individually and in collaboration with those affected, carefully implemented as part of a change project, and set up in line with requirements. And even then, they can fail in the first place like at Volkswagen AG.

At the same time, in a globalized working world, companies can hardly reconcile integrated communication 4.0 with traditional working time models. Small and medium-sized enterprises must respond quickly to the concerns of the users in Azerbaijan and the US described at the beginning. Otherwise, they risk losing orders and reputation, which would ultimately mean job losses and a gain for their competitors. Responsible works councils and trade unions are aware of these interdependencies and are working with employees and managers to develop innovative working time models.

The rest of the story

And how did the story described at the beginning continue?

The Twitter query from Azerbaijan was first picked up by the press office. Fortunately, they used a social media monitoring tool. They forwarded the tweet by email to the purchasing department and the relevant specialist department. However, no one there understood the Turkish dialect, and the email address of the interested party was not included anywhere. No one knew what to make of his Twitter name. So the email went back to the press office. In the meantime, the press office tried to weather the storm of criticism. To do so, it needed input from relevant departments as well as from marketing, sales, and customer service. The coordination process took up valuable time. In the end, everyone was dissatisfied with the cumbersome processes for the two parallel events and thus dissatisfied with the lack of integrated communication.